


over the wide skies up above (and the earth below)

by lescousinsdangereux



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Greek Religion & Lore Fusion, Alternate Universe - College/University, Blake as Hades, F/F, Minor Pyrrha Nikos/Weiss Schnee, Reincarnation, Soulmates, Yang as Persephone, and other characters playing the role of various Greek Gods for fun and profit, the author will play with mythology as she sees fit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:01:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25917754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lescousinsdangereux/pseuds/lescousinsdangereux
Summary: They meet on campus, on the first day of winter.(They meet in a field of wildflowers, on the first day of spring.)Yang carries buckets of flowers, offers a stem with a smile, shares her phone number with a wink.(Kore makes every plant bloom, curls stems around her ankles, presses petals into her palm.)Blake knows her, but she can’t say how.(Hades fell in love with her before time began.)
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 38
Kudos: 219





	over the wide skies up above (and the earth below)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [explosivesky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/explosivesky/gifts).



> I posted some of this on Tumblr exactly a year ago, but now it's a full fic, because my girlfriend wanted it to be a full fic and it's her birthday today! She's always wanted a Greek Gods AU for RWBY and since I studied Classical Civilizations in college, this is slightly in my wheelhouse. However, important caveat: I'm also making things up. But since mythology is always evolving, this is just me adding to the tradition, so it's fine!
> 
> The playlist for this fic can be found [here!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4JclHKK2eQNnbWoEfBg6Gj?si=4C11Q_W0R7KIJXkL8hAY5w)

_She was picking flowers: roses, crocus, and beautiful violets.  
_ _Up and down the soft meadow. Iris blossoms too she picked, and hyacinth.  
_ _And the narcissus, which was grown as a lure for the flower-faced girl  
_ _by Gaia. All according to the plans of Zeus.  
_ _She was doing a favor for the one who receives many guests._

_It was a wondrous thing in its splendor. To look at it gives a sense of holy awe  
_ _to the immortal gods as well as mortal humans.  
_ _It has a hundred heads growing from the root up._  
_Its sweet fragrance spread over the wide skies up above.  
_ _And the earth below smiled back in all its radiance._

[From the _Homeric Hymn to Demeter,_ translated by Gregory Nagy]

—

They meet on a Thursday morning, on the first day of Winter, under a cloudy and snow-filled sky.

It’s a collision only barely avoided; she swerves, but the white petals — sticking out every which way — still brush against her cheek, not as easily dodged as the form carrying them, barreling around the corner without any particular concern or hesitation. The juxtaposition hardly stops there, because the resulting stream of expletives feels in direct opposition to what follows it: an apology that somehow manages to sound soft and sincere, despite the lingering profanities.

The words float in the air and settle low in her chest, the reverberation behind them a comfort she can almost remember. The thought doesn’t make any sense, but she hardly has time to consider its meaning when it first hits her, because it’s followed so quickly by a scent — floral and strong and overwhelming and familiar — that turns the world over on itself, shifts the seasons, melts the ice around them.

“Shit, sorry! I’ve got so many of these fucking things that I can barely see and I’ve got to get them to the greenhouse in like five minutes and I’m _really_ running late and _are you okay_?”

Most of the woman’s face is obscured by her flowers (Blake can see them more clearly now that they’re stationary: long-stemmed and white, with a brilliant yellow center ringed in red), but her long blonde hair spills outside of the boundaries of the mass of the dozens of stems, barely contained to the two large buckets she holds in front of her chest. Blake finds herself briefly distracted again (distracted from a distraction), this time by the looping curls, the different colors of gold that glint among the strands. They reflect the sun, despite the overcast skies. But then the woman moves — a futile attempt to see around the flowers — and with the movement, a new wave of the scent hits her and it’s all she can think about again.

“What _is_ that?”

“What’s _what_?” The woman laughs and finally pokes her head through the flowers, and the bright smile that appears is one that Blake cannot differentiate from the first bloom of spring. “You mean like, the daffodils or — _whoa_.”

She can’t pinpoint the reason for the change, but _something_ makes the woman’s eyes (the color of the sky at 5:30 in the morning on the fifteenth of June) widen when they first meet Blake’s. The surprise steals her smile, but it returns almost immediately, stronger than before.

“Whoa,” she says again. “Where have _you_ been?”

Blake’s a college freshman — one who got a fake ID at 16 and has been to frat parties and bars and clubs — and so she’s heard the line before (or something like it, ‘all my life’ tacked on at the end), but she’s never heard anyone say it like this woman does. The emphasis is in the wrong spot, the tone out of place, the emotion behind it incomprehensible.

Her instinctive reply — most bewildering of all of it — is ‘waiting for you’.

“I — what?” she says instead.

“It’s the day before Christmas break! We’ve gone through a whole semester! I’ve been here all this time and I’ve never seen you before. It’s not _that_ big of a school. So, like, where have you been?”

The girl shifts her cargo to the side — as though to give herself a better view — and the warm leather of her coat, the soft wool around the collar, belongs on her frame as much as the dark gold belongs around her neck (a woven scarf, its color deeper than her hair).

“Not in the greenhouse,” Blake settles on. “I didn’t know we had one.”

“Yeah, I could have guessed that.”

It comes with a laugh and Blake’s not sure whether to be offended or not, but the woman quickly continues, long before Blake can settle on any one emotion.

“The Botany program is pretty small. Not too many people other than us visit the far field, let alone the greenhouse.”

“Botany?” It’s not what she expects — not even a little — but then she considers again and decides that maybe it had been. It feels right.

(Blake’s not sure how she knows what feels right. But she doesn’t question it either.)

“Yeah. Plants are sort of my thing.” The girl lifts one of the buckets as though to prove her point, and Blake is once again reminded.

“Yeah. What _are_ those? They smell — ”

(Perfect. Like something she’s been searching for.)

“Really good, right?” She laughs again: a breeze, but one strong enough to bend the trunks of trees. “Yeah, people use it in perfumes all the fucking time. But I think I like the pure version of it best.” Leaning forward, the woman tips the bucket in Blake’s direction, allowing her to get another whiff. “Poet’s Daffodil. _Narcissus poeticus_ , if you’d be into me showing off.”

She’s leaning in, breathing deep, but her surprise at the name is such that it nearly sends her rocking off balance and crashing face-first into the delicate stems.

“Oh, you _are_ into me showing off.” The woman shifts again, but the flowers can’t obscure the brightness of her grin. “Hold on, let me take some notes for future reference. Is it the Latin, foreign languages in general, or the _vast_ depth of knowledge that does it for you?”

“No, I — ” Blake barely recognizes the laugh that escapes from her own lips. “No, it’s just. I’ve never seen it before. The actual flower version, I mean. But I’ve read about it a hundred times. Narcissus the man, at least.”

“Mythology nerd, huh?”

“Classics major.”

“Oh, _super_ mythology nerd.” She tips the bucket forward again. One of the flowers slides against Blake’s cheek. “You better take one, then. You can show it off to all your friends. Spin it however you like. Something like, you got a mythological flower from a mythological girl.” She pauses, scrunching her nose. “Okay that didn’t actually make sense. I meant like, you got a flower from a goddess. Because I’m like — who’s the hottest goddess? I’m like her.”

“The last person who answered that question got into an awful lot of trouble, in the end,” Blake quips, but finds her smile aches.

She also finds she has an immediate answer, though it’s not one of the three that Paris had to consider in the judgement that led to such trouble for the Greeks and Trojans both.

(Later, she’ll forget this instinctive thought. Much, much later, she’ll laugh about it.)

“I think I remember the basics of that one.” The woman winks. “So how about you take the flower _and_ my number instead of a golden apple and we’ll skip the bad ending.”

It’s sudden, but it doesn’t feel like it. It feels like Blake’s been waiting for a while.

“Forward,” she says despite all that, because it’s almost as though she has to. As though there are steps to take that she’s not allowed to skip, lest she upset the very balance of the universe.

It’s a dramatic thought; she’d laugh at herself if — when she reaches into the bucket to grasp one of the stems — she didn’t feel the world sigh in relief.

“I’ve never really seen the point of wasting time.” The woman shrugs, tone and words light, but only in the same sort of way (required, practiced lines). “There’s just not enough of it.”

“You sound like you’re a hundred years old and on your deathbed,” Blake laughs, but _oh_ , her heart is clenching. She’s taking out her phone. She’s already making a new contact. She’s already thinking about the first time she’ll text this woman and she doesn’t even know her name.

(There isn’t enough _time_. Somehow, she agrees, and that makes her want to get it all in now, while she has a chance.)

“ _Or_ I’m someone who is _very_ late in dropping off some daffodils that don’t really like the cold much. Even if I have a _very_ valid excuse in wanting to stick around.” She pulls away with several long strides backwards; she seems geniunely regretful, but brightens a little, seeing the flower clutched in one of Blake’s hands (and her phone in the other). “818-815-6247. Let me know if you want to see the greenhouse. Or tell me about the prettiest goddess. Or do anything at all.”

She takes another step back, twisting away with the motion, and Blake nods twice, before realizing she’s missing something.

“Wait! I’m — ” It comes out sounding a little more desperate than she would have liked, but then, the woman turns back towards her quickly enough for a single petal to fall off of one of of the flowers, so maybe pretenses aren’t really something either of them are concerning themselves with. “I don’t know your name.”

“Yang.” It’s not the name she expects, but it slides into place easily enough.

“Blake.” (Somehow, that’s not the name she expects either, even though it’s her own.) “I’ll text you. Call you. Soon.”

“Good.” She catches another flash of that smile before Yang turns away. “And I’ll be waiting. Or — trying to. I’ve never been very patient, though you’d think I would have learned by now.”

“A lot of practice?” Blake calls after her, takes a step towards her (doesn’t notice).

“Too much, I think.” Her laugh carries, blonde curls whip in the wind as she walks off. “So try to have mercy on me this time.”

Afterwards, she smells of daffodils (of dark green leaves, of a meadow that stretches on and on and on, of mint and hay and dirt and weeds and the whole of spring), as though it’s coming from her pores rather than the flower she places in a small glass on her nightstand. The scent persists through showers and nights out and all the smells that come with living in a coed freshman dorm. It lasts for days (or eons) and stretches back in time, too; she finds it tucked away in memories where it has no place, couldn’t possibly exist.

(She’s five and her mom takes her to pick blueberries, she’s fourteen on a field trip to the botanical gardens, she’s seventeen and trying to find a perfume that suits her, she’s nineteen and stepping out of her late night Byzantine history seminar. And it’s there — it’s always there — just out of reach: the field over, the next flower, a _slightly_ different perfume, a whiff on the wind that she chases across campus for ten minutes before giving up.)

(She’s older — ageless — and she doesn’t recognize herself, but it’s there too.)

The scent of flowers lingers and Blake doesn’t mind.

She also texts Yang before it can begin to fade.

—

_They first meet on Helios’s Day, on the morning of the vernal equinox, under a bright and clear sky._

_She watches from behind the treeline, but even from a distance, she knows; it’s obvious in the way the ground rises to greet her when the woman walks past: stalks lengthening, flowers unfolding, grass brightening into a more vibrant shade of green with each step she takes. The world is in bloom and it follows the unspoken instructions of only one creature that roams its face._

_Hesitation is not a trait often associated with the gods, but the god of the Underworld feels it now, unwilling to interrupt the celebration that the very Earth wishes to partake in, but desiring it all the same. She is used to the damp, dark coolness of the world Below, and thus the sun always beats down with an unfamiliar and uncomfortable heat, but today it feels indomitable and irresistible._

_Today, she wants to step out into the light._

_Vines wrap around her as soon as she does — nothing binding or restrictive, but welcoming — a soft touch that greets her in time with the smile of the one who controls them. The woman does not appear surprised at the intrusion, nor displeased, but when she walks closer and white flowers — fragrant and familiar — spring up all around them, recognition sprouts as well._

_“The Receiver of Many Guests. Giver of Good Counsel. It’s not often we see you up here.” The tone is teasing, different from what she typically hears, and it warms her cheeks, places a shade of color there that others would not recognize. (She barely recognizes the feeling behind it in herself.) “What have you come to the surface for?”_

_She has an answer to the question, but it’s an honest one, not one she typically gives freely._

_She gives it freely now._

_“I find that, sometimes, I miss being around things that are alive.”_

_The goddess doesn’t belittle when she responds, like so many others would, though her smile remains playful._

_“I may be able to help you with that.”_

_The ground shifts again and one of the flowers at her feet lifts, stem lengthening to four times what would be natural, until it’s sliding between her fingers, depositing itself in her palm, releasing itself from the Earth when she lifts it to her nose and breathes deep._

_“Everything dies when I go Below,” she says softly, and with regret._

_“Not this.”_

_She stares into the goddess’s eyes (crocus, monkshood, bellflower, wisteria, lilac) and believes her words, impossible though they are. The goddess continues before she can say so, and perhaps that’s for the best._

_“I’m Kore.” The name doesn’t quite suit her, though the king of the Underworld had known it before now. “You should call on me whenever you want to feel something that is alive.”_

_She does not consider her answer; the words flow faster than the Styx._

_“And what if I want to feel that always?”_

_Kore laughs. The whole of the clearing blooms._

_“Then you should call on me always, Hades. Whenever you please.”_

_—_

There’s no need for any pretense. No desire for it, besides.

They graduate from text to voice quickly — within the span of a week — and when Blake calls, Yang answers on the first ring. Blake spends her winter break lost in a haze of it, to the point that her mom shoots her a pointed look every time her phone comes out (every time the message is from Yang, and she gets an undoubtedly dopey smile on her face). She doesn’t care, doesn’t try to hide it. And the first day she’s back on campus, when Blake asks if Yang wants to hang out, Yang rattles off seven different options without pause.

(“I’ve been thinking about what we should do together since we first met,” Yang says, not really an _admission_ , not when she makes the truth so easily accessible.

“That was only three weeks ago,” Blake feels she has to add, but Yang just laughs.)

Yang — without flowers blocking her face — is more beautiful than anything Blake’s ever seen. It’s more than the sharp cut of her jaw or the muscles of her forearm or the way her eyes crinkle when she smiles; Yang is attractive and anyone would agree, but it’s _more_ than that. There’s something that curls into Blake’s stomach and settles in place at the sight of her, roots growing quick and deep. And maybe it’s more for Yang too, because her expression — when Blake steps into view, climbing up over the crest of the hill that marks the start of the far field — holds more than Blake can measure.

College is strange, and the relationships formed within it, stranger still. She’d met Sun at a freshmen karaoke mixer that she’d been dragged to by her roommate and in the span of a few hours, they’d gone through every stage of relationship imaginable: strangers (the awkward first meet), rivals (when he and Ilia had picked the same song and Blake had been dragged along to be on her roommate’s team in solidarity), potential romantic partners (when mixer had become unofficial and the alcohol had come out), and (finally) best friends (when the awkward flirtation and intoxication was behind them).

But this — Yang taking her hand and leading her towards the greenhouse — is different, and that must be apparent to both of them, because Yang hardly looks surprised when Blake doesn’t step away, even once they’re inside.

“Why botany?” Blake asks, tone softer than the question merits.

Yang’s lips curl and Blake gets caught on the corner like it’s a hook; she wants to press her fingers against the indent, and then do the same with her mouth.

“I like making things grow. Wherever I go.” Her smile is unabashed, even when she continues. “Cheesy, I know. But I like making things come alive.”

(Blake thinks of vines growing in places they aren’t permitted, thinks of flowers sprouting from the cracks in pavement, thinks of the roots of trees spilling out of the soil and digging into rock instead. She thinks, most of all, of Yang’s hands on all of them and on her as well, a different sort of challenge that Yang never took as such.)

“It’s not cheesy, it’s — “ As she hunts for the word, Yang’s gaze does something similar as it traces the planes of her face. It’s a kind of _searching_ , and Blake gets the impression she doesn’t find the exact answer she’s looking for; Blake finds herself coming up similarly short, though she wouldn’t be able to define even the question, if asked. “ — sincere? Earnest?” She shakes her head; neither are quite right. “Whatever it is, the world needs more of it.”

The honesty doesn’t sound as sweet coming from her lips, but Yang doesn’t appear to mind. She smiles again, wider this time, and the plants around them pulse with a soft sigh, a tangible exhale of oxygen. And when Yang walks along the rows, running her fingers gently along the leaves and petals and stalks, as she speaks each of their names with a quiet reverence, Blake could swear the vegetation leans into her touch.

The thought is less strange when coupled with her own: that she wants to do much of the same.

She searches for patience, then.

She’s had practice with it too.

(She used to have more of it.)

—

_Hades waits._

_She waits because decorum demands it. She waits because she has souls to shepherd. She waits because she can, because there is no rush, because she is a god and gods do not scurry._

_She waits, most of all, because she is scared._

_The daffodil Kore had given her has retained its life — impossibly so — and she keeps it tucked in the folds of her robes, pressed against the skin of her chest. The Underworld does not smell of decay or death, but rather, of nothing at all, and the scent of the flower fills this empty space, spreads throughout it and sticks to every surface. Hades couldn’t say if the souls notice; she thinks to ask — once, passing through the Fields of Mourning — but refuses to do so, the possibility of either answer filling her with a mix of pleasure and dread._

_Instead, she breathes in deep, and she waits._

_She waits until, one day, she feels the weight of a stare at her back, nothing like the empty gazes of souls, intent enough to raise the hairs at the back of her neck. She turns, finds silver eyes, and feels only surprise when the connection holds, when the distance lessens. Hermes is fast enough — even when shepherding souls down to the gates of the Underworld — that Hades rarely catches more than a brief flash of her. She’s never taken offense; the land of the dead is cold and dark and dreary and even the gods fear the icy waters of its rivers, avoid the location and its ruler and all that she represents. But now, Hermes does not flee, and moves with a purposeful slowness when she approaches Hades, an odd lift to her lips._

_“Have you brought me more souls, Hermes?” Hades asks, her voice soft, the lilt at the end of her words questioning more than she says aloud._

_“Always. A young girl who was too brave and climbed too high. An old man who lived too long and grew too bitter. A brave warrior who fell to an unlucky arrow, in the one place her skin could be pierced.” Hermes’ smile grows, full of a joke Hades only understands when she continues. “Athena will not say so, but she hopes you will take special care of this last one. She will find a way to retrieve her favorite mortal soon enough.”_

_“Athena finds a way to do whatever she desires, always,” Hades drawls, not unkindly. “I will take care of them all, as I always do. As best as I am permitted.”_

_(It’s not enough. Hades always feels it’s never enough. But forces stronger than her bind, restrict, limit.)_

_“I know you will.” The wings at the sandals of Hermes’ feet twitch, as though they tire of remaining still for so long, but Hermes stays, though she bounces in place slightly, in a manner the humans would find surprising and Hades finds endearing. “And I know, also, that the message I have for you will please you.”_

_“Seems unlikely, if it’s from Zeus.”_

_Hermes laughs. The sound fills the empty halls of the Underworld, brings them joy so sudden and bright, it’s nearly destructive. Hades is glad; hopes the souls felt the uplift of spirit, just as she had._

_“No. From my sister.”_

_This too, is a joke, and Hades finds her own laugh does not have the same effect on their surroundings, though it lifts her own heart all the same. “This does not narrow things down for me. You’ve been assigned many by the morals above.”_

_“But I’ve only chosen one.” Hermes hand darts out to rest on Hades shoulder, faster than Zeus’s lightning, faster than Hades can see. But the gesture is gentle, despite the speed. “Kore says you should visit her, like you promised. She says — ” Hermes pauses, and her eyes are bright and wide and kind. “She says she would like to make_ you _feel alive.”_

_(Just then, Hades feels right on the verge of it, from Kore’s message alone.)_

_After that, she waits no longer._

—

Blake doesn’t last long.

But then, how could she?

Not a week later, one of Yang’s roommates throws a back-to-school party and Blake gets pulled along, as seems to be the new trend. She’s not seen Yang’s place, or met either of her roommates, but she’s heard plenty.

(“It’s weird,” Yang had said, much in the same way she always does, with a grin lighting her face. “Weiss is normally a lot more particular about her guest list.”)

And what she’s heard has Blake choosing her attire carefully: her lone pair of black skinny jeans without any holes, her favorite black leather jacket, a simple scoop-neck tee underneath, and a pair of ankle boots that have less scuff than the rest. She tops it all off with a careful assortment of gold jewelry — earrings and necklace and bracelet — that she places _just so_ as she dresses, making sure everything lays just right, adjusting the long waves of her hair enough times that Ilia, with a loud groan, finally kicks her out of the room. It’s a level of preparation she’d never admit to, but is glad for; Yang meets her outside her building — in a purple, sleeveless sundress that looks at once casual and designed for her — and stares at Blake so abashedly that it makes _Blake_ blush. (Or maybe it’s the bare shoulders — the muscles and the freckles and the glow on her skin that lingers long after the sun has set — or the smile that blooms as soon as Blake steps outside.)

She’s glad for it again when they make it to Yang’s place — an apartment off-campus, in one of the nicest complexes in the area — and Yang’s roommate greets her at the door with a piercing blue stare and a once over that’s so clinical, it nearly makes Blake shiver.

“Blake,” the woman says, in a way that sounds like it’s a substitute for something else. “I’m pleased you were able to make it. I’m Weiss.” She pauses. “Schnee.”

Weiss is _tiny_ , even in the five-inch heels that likely cost more than Blake’s rent for three months, and more put together than Blake would have thought possible for a nineteen-year-old. Her posture is without fault, the lift of her chin plainly regal, and the set of her mouth stern. Had Blake been in the habit of assigning people Homeric epithets (which, admittedly, she sometimes was) she would have given Weiss the much-debated ‘ _glaukopis_ ’, a term not entirely possible to translate into English, but one that spoke to the peculiar tint to Weiss’s eyes, not necessarily in color, but character: bright and shrewd.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Blake says, because it is, oddly enough — despite the strange intensity of her frosty gaze — nice to meet Weiss. Perhaps it’s the connection to Yang, or perhaps it’s something else, but when Weiss finally smiles, just then, there’s an ease in the handshake she offers that speaks to a kind of held respect that Blake doesn’t understand how she’s already earned.

“We’ll talk more later.” There’s no doubt or question in her words, only reference to an eventuality. “But for now, I need to network. That’s the whole point of this party, despite Yang not participating in any of it.”

“A networking party,” Yang scoffs. “What a fucking oxymoron. Have you ever had a moment where you just had _fun_ Weiss? Like, not as a byproduct of something with an ulterior motive?”

Weiss considers this question seriously, and it’d be funny if it weren’t deeply sad at second glance.

“I turned a woman into a spider once,” Weiss finally comes up with, and Blake stares.

“Weiss.” Yang’s groan throws her head back, but there’s no heat to it. “You can’t just _say_ that stuff in front of new people.”

With a careless flip of her long ponytail, Weiss waves off the complaint, like it’s one she’s heard before. “It’s a metaphor.”

“ _Is it?_ ” Yang laughs, disbelief and delight merging into a particular sort of amusement. “What the hell kind of metaphor, Weiss?”

Apparently, this isn’t a question worth answering, though Weiss ignoring her doesn’t decrease Yang’s mirth, present in every line of her face.

“You’ll get it later. Yang, if you see Henry Marigold — ”

Yang cuts her off with a salute. “ — Make fun of his paisley waistcoat until he cries.”

“No!” There’s no hesitation in the shout, or in the soft slap Weiss delivers to Yang’s hand, knocking the mocking salute out of the air (though she has to shift onto her toes to manage it). “ _Yang_! What did I say? _I’m_ _networking_! Don’t speak to him unless it’s to give him directions on where to find me.”

“Okay. Alright. I get it.” Yang places her palm on Weiss’s shoulder with all the gravitas of a knight kneeling before the throne of their king. The solemn mood lasts for an entire, extended second. “But I’m _gonna_ make fun of him, Weiss. I just feel like I have to be honest about that. Because there’s _no_ way I’m going to look that little trustfund runt in the eye and _not_ tell him he looks like he’s wearing an old woman’s drapes.”

Weiss sighs, but not for the reason Blake expects. “I know. He’s a fucking moron. But I need his money, so be as nice as possible.” Her stare moves between the two women in front of her, and she smiles, surprisingly gentle. “I really am happy you’re both here, you know. Go get a drink; the bartender will have your favorites ready.”

“But how do you — ” Blake begins, but Weiss’s stare — eerily knowing — cuts her off, and Blake changes course. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Weiss returns smoothly, already turning away to greet someone new (though somehow, Blake still feels the heaviness of the gaze, lingering).

“Weiss just knows stuff.” With a careful but firm hand on the small of her back, Yang steers them away from the entrance way of the apartment. “Don’t think about it too much. Or at all. Honestly, not thinking about it at all is probably your best shot, because otherwise you might start kind-of-but-not-really joking about how she’s probably tapped your phone lines through her Schnee Industries contacts.”

Blake feels her lips quirk. “Did you think that your roommate was — ”

“Ruby and I _may_ have discussed it at one point in time!” Yang throws her hands up, but her right finds Blake’s back once more, quickly after. “Oh! Ruby is my sister, by the way. And my other roommate. She’s a super genius that jumped ahead two grades so she could get right into Communications and like, change the face of social media or something. I’ll introduce you if I see her, but she’s usually zipping around all over the place so who knows if I’ll manage it. Maybe if we at her on Twitter...”

“You — ” Blake laughs softly, mostly to herself, but Yang smiles too, like context doesn’t matter as long as it makes Blake happy. “You live a very interesting life, Yang Xiao Long.”

There are two drinks waiting for them behind the bar when they push through the crowd, further into the apartment. How Weiss manages this, Blake tries not to question, but when the bartender — a girl with red-orange hair and blue streaks, wearing a wreath of ivy like a crown — winks at Yang and slides over the two glasses, it’s clear she has, in fact, managed it somehow.

“Added to the tattoo, Neon?” Yang asks conversationally, nodding at the bandage wrapped around the woman’s forearm as she passes the bright orange drink to Blake, without asking what either of them are.

“ _Oh my god_ , yeah! I _just_ came from there! I almost forgot that was still on! I’ve totally extended the vines in the _coolest_ way, Yangy. You gotta see.”

As the woman busies herself with removing the wrap — something that Blake isn’t sure is particularly advisable given she’s behind a bar and _serving drinks_ — Blake lifts her brows and mouths ‘Yangy’ at the woman beside her, whose lips twitch in amusement. But she’s distracted by the horrible nickname when Neon finishes revealing the additions to her already impressive ink: leafy vines starting at her neck and wrapping (presumably) under her shirt and down her arms.

“You… added a lady,” Yang says, tone painfully neutral, given away only by another lip twitch.

This is true, strictly speaking, but it also leaves out an awful lot. Such as the state of undress. And the rather _happy_ expression on the face of the inked woman.

“A very naked lady,” Blake adds, because she’s unable to help herself.

“Isn’t it _rad_?” Neon stretches her arm out, fully revealing the naked woman not so much _tucked away_ in the previously inked vines as _completely_ exposed by them. “Like, the _artistry_ , you know?”

“Totally.” Yang nods and Blake does as well, for fear that anything else — such as looking at Yang’s straight-laced face — might send her into hysterics.

“The Weiss Queen paid me double _and_ in advance this time. And all because I promised I wouldn’t put out the tip jar.” Neon laughs, loud and obnoxious enough that a few people look over. “As if the rich snobs at these things ever put even a dime in.”

This, at least, Blake can find sense in.

“Too bad,” Neon continues, leaning across the bar. “Cause maybe then I’d have enough to finally take you on a date, eh, firecracker?”

She can find sense in that too, but that doesn’t stop the annoyance from creeping in. Or the jealousy. Or the possession. These are not things Blake often sees in herself. They’re not things she particularly likes seeing in herself. But she still takes a step closer to Yang.

Yang doesn’t seem to mind; the way she wraps her arm around Blake is instinct too, but one she’s clearly comfortable with, fingers drumming against the curve of Blake’s waist, almost (but not quite) slipping under her shirt.

“Neon, what have we said about perpetuating harmful stereotypes about lesbians?” Her drawl is low and amused and also hot. Blake momentarily forgets about any previous irritation, instead sinking into the new sensation of Yang’s voice reverberating throughout her frame.

“Blah blah blah. You’re hot. _I’m_ hot. Let’s just _do_ this thing already. Like, _hello_?” She gestures towards herself, fingers wiggling rapidly back and forth between her own breasts, very much on display. “ _Hello_?”

“Yes, hello,” Blake says coolly. “As impressive as those are, Yang is here with someone. In case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Aw, the Nellie Kuh girl? Really, Yang?” Neon’s nose scrunches up, but then she just shrugs, turning to Blake. “Well, can’t fault you on your drink, babe. Or the style. Though, _ick_ , little heavy on the eyeliner, huh?”

“ _Neon_.” It’s the first time Yang sounds less than amused — sharp, even — and Neon realizes pretty quickly that she’s crossed a line that Blake has to imagine is typically hard to reach (feels a firm tug in her chest at the realization that Yang’s reached it because of _her_ ).

“Whoa. No need to Hulk out!” Neon’s hands lift, palms out. “Didn’t realize it was a touchy subject, you know? But chill! Enjoy the drinks! I can take a hint.”

Blake’s not entirely sure that’s true, but Neon does go back to her _actual_ job, taking orders from the patrons who’d piled up during her impromptu break, though she appears wholly unconcerned by any inconvenience she might have caused.

“Sorry about her,” Yang sighs. She’s close enough now — arm still around Blake’s waist — that the warm air flits by Blake’s ear, causing a shiver that she only barely manages to suppress. “She doesn’t really have a filter and also just kind of thrives on chaos. I can’t _believe_ Weiss hired her again after the incident last time.” Blake raises a brow in question and Yang continues, her posture loosening. “Blue Blazer cocktails gone wrong. The Fire Department showed up _and_ Weiss lost the back of her favorite couch to the fire.”

It’s not particularly hard to imagine.

“Sounds like a good story, and nothing draws people to parties like a good story.” Blake shrugs, arms shifting against the front of Yang’s dress. “Maybe Weiss is playing the long game.”

“Weiss is _always_ playing the long game.” She laughs though, like it’s an endearing feature, and picks up her own drink, a murky yellow concoction that Blake doesn’t recognize by sight alone. “Speaking of, how’d she do with your drink choice? _Please_ tell me she fucked it up; I’ve been waiting for her to be wrong for _ten years._ ”

The glass is cold in her hands, a pleasant contrast to the heat of Yang’s body (Blake’s always run cool, but Yang puts out enough warmth that she feels it in her blood, a climbing fever). When she takes a sip, there’s a surprising spice there that thaws her further: clove and ginger, gliding atop the richer, more comfortable notes of molasses and honey. And then, riding amidst it all, the citrus, orange and lime and the fresh feeling of summer.

Yang knows it’s been a hit with only one glance.

“Damn. That good, huh?” She hums in thought and, with the most treacherous absentmindedness, runs her thumb along Blake’s bottom lip, collecting a small drop of cocktail on the pad of the digit, and sucks it off.

Blake feels dangerously close to blacking out.

“Ugh, yeah, fine. It suits you. Do you know she guessed my favorite drink before we were even _able_ to drink? Like, in _high school_. I didn’t even know what the hell an Irish Maid _was_. But here we are.” She shakes her own drink and takes a long sip. “One day I’ll see her flop. Like, she _has_ to eventually, right?”

Yang doesn’t wait for her to answer, which is good, because Blake is entirely unable to, still feeling the hot press of Yang’s thumb at her lip, wondering how the room has remained untouched around them (how no one else felt the world shake).

“Wanna find somewhere less stuffy to drink these?” Another rhetorical question, because Yang nudges her away from the bar. “It’s suddenly like, super hot in here, right?”

The flush on Yang’s face is a surprise, and Blake only notices after Yang calls attention to it. But once she sees it — the rosy glow over the light freckles scattered sparingly across her cheeks — it occurs to Blake that maybe she isn’t the only one so affected. It makes everything a little easier, and she shifts, taking Yang’s hand as they squeeze through the tighter groups. Yang’s blush deepens, but only in pleasure, and Blake is left without any doubt.

There are enough people in the apartment that it’s hard to actually get a feel for the place Yang lives, but as they drift away from the bar — keeping close despite the crowds — Blake catches tantalizing snapshots: a framed photo of Yang holding up two women on her shoulders (one with her arms outstretched in a frozen double-fist pump, the other a very put-out Weiss); an owl statue, carved in delicate bronze with eyes that seem to follow Blake throughout the room; the approximation of a trophy, made of tin foil and paper clips; a battered pair of Air Jordans in a glass display case; and an Impressionist painting of a field of wildflowers ( _roses, crocus, violets, iris, hyacinth, narcissus_ ), which takes up an entire wall. It’s hardly enough, but not a permanent problem.

Because instead, Blake gets a feel for Yang. With everyone around her, she’s tactile and gregarious and fun and — as their progress is inevitably halted by faces familiar to her, friends calling her name — she touches people as she greets them, during conversations, when she says goodbye. And, throughout it, she touches Blake most of all: her hand in the dip just below her ribs, her fingers threading through the hair that drapes down her back, her chin resting on Blake’s shoulder. She introduces Blake with ease, comfort, familiarity, like Blake has always been at her side and people had just _missed it_ , somehow, and now she’s just catching them up.

It’s convincing; enough so that Blake starts to believe it herself.

(Whispers of fantasies that could be memories _: ‘We haven’t seen you up here in Ages,’ they say, and laugh because it’s a clever enough joke when every cup at the banquet table has been refilled five times over. Her shoulders tense, but warm fingers stroke along the cool skin of her wrist and she calms. She smiles._ )

It’s pleasant, really, but there’s never enough time. _There’s not enough time_ , Blake remembers suddenly, and finds herself dropping her empty glass onto the closest surface, reaching over to grasp Yang’s hand, and pulling her outside, as soon as they’re close to the sliding glass door that leads to the balcony, one that — it’s clear to see even from inside — has been completely overtaken by greenery, which _of course_. Of course. Vines curl up the sides of the building’s brick and arch around the top, a curved canopy that’s so cleverly done, Blake barely notices the bending trellis. Flowers sprout among the green, purples and pinks and yellows; fanned palms are tucked into the back corners; honeysuckle covers the metal railing, filling the air with its sweet nectar. And when Yang closes the door behind them, the illusion is complete; they are alone, they are transported, they are in a distant field in a distant land with only the Earth bearing witness to the moment in time, carefully carved out to be solely their own.

“How’d you know?” Yang asks quietly, needing only to take two steps until her hands are on Blake’s hips, until her breath is warm on Blake’s face. “That this was exactly where I wanted to be?”

Blake doesn’t have an answer for this. She only knows that it’s the only place they could possibly be — tucked into the corner of the garden balcony of Yang’s lavish apartment with the night sky overhead — when she kisses Yang for the first time.

There’s no surprise in the action, but there’s plenty of everything else.

Of warm summer nights and wet grass under her feet, of the scent of honey in the air and flower petals brushing against her cheek, of tartness on the roof of her mouth and sweetness on the tip of tongue. And of warmth. Of fire. She is a frozen digit plunged into a lukewarm bath that feels scalding, she is ice undergoing sublimation, she is stainless steel under a torch and bending, changing, warping. Yang’s lips are hot against her own and she is turning into something new.

(Blake considers all the ancient Greek words for affection, for feeling, for lust, for every form of love known to the poets, and disregards them all. This is different. This is theirs.)

Her lipstick is dark, and it’s smeared over Yang’s mouth when she pulls back (later — that night and in the upcoming weeks and months and years — she’ll find it in other places: Yang’s neck, her thighs, her sheets). The stain Yang leaves is of a different sort, but Blake first notices it in the taste left on her lips. She runs her tongue along it, brow pinching in thought, and Yang laughs as she watches her try to figure it out.

“Pomegranate,” she explains, breathless and bright. “It’s the lip balm.”

Blake can’t see how that accounts for all of it and kisses her again, just to be sure.

_—_

_Hades finds her in a similar place to where she’d seen Kore last._

_“Did you change your mind?” she asks, as soon as Hades steps into the field of impossible colors. “After our last conversation, I thought your visit would come sooner.”_

_The question is not posed unkindly (Kore, she will come to find, is never unkind), but it’s directness puts Hades off-balance. She thinks of the lies she might tell, the excuses she might stretch, but her resolve instead settles on the look she’d seen in Kore’s eyes when she’d once told her a simple truth. She’s compelled by the thing inside her that aches to see that look again._

_“I find myself struggling with the gap between desire and action.”_

_This honesty is not without cost — Hades must push past a fair amount of discomfort — but the result is as intended; sunlight catches the field in a new way, the grasses twist and sway, and Kore smiles, beckoning her closer without word or gesture._

_“A problem, but not one as bad as the opposite. So many of our fellows seem to lack that gap entirely.” The smile grows, lilac eyes crinkling. “Myself included, sometimes.”_

_The wildflowers greet her as she walks past, each a soft caress against her bare ankles._

_“We must find a balance, then,” Hades says, and she can’t know it, but her irises are brighter than they’ve ever been, the gold richening to match her surroundings, to keep up with the sensations building within her with each step forward. She can’t know it, but might guess, based on Kore’s mouth alone, slightly open with wonder. “Between recklessness and indecision.”_

_Kore wears her chiton loose, held up by a single shoulder and without unnecessary layers. And so only a thin stretch of cloth separates Hades’ hand and the skin of Kore’s hip when she finishes crossing the field and rests her palm there._

_“Or know when a situation calls for one or the other,” Kore amends, breathless and bright. “Don’t you think?”_

_For once, Hades does not think much at all, and finds Kore’s lips with her own._

_-_

_The first time they kiss, the world springs into revelry._

_The humans flourish under the bountiful harvest; their yields triple, they write songs about the season, they throw feasts without excuse, and all the gods benefit from an upsurge in the generosity of tributes from the smallest villages to the largest city-states._

_Hades hardly notices._

_Instead, she focuses on memorizing the way Kore tastes, for centuries, eons, ages, lifetimes._

_Time does not touch them, and so there is always enough._

—

Blake’s lived in a freshman dorm for more than a semester now, a good seven months, but somehow it’s Yang — living off-campus and yet far more in tune with it — who shows her the value of exploring off the main paths, of taking an interest in more than her typical treks to the Union, cafeteria, or Classics building. There’s a garden on the roof of the library, a web of underground tunnels, a room in the Chemistry building that’s hidden behind shelving, and a small and dilapidated amphitheater near the botanical gardens. At every turn, Yang shows her something new, and though there are a finite number of places in the world, Blake doesn’t think she’ll ever run out.

But tonight is an occasion of particular note, because it involves a blindfold, a full moon, all-white attire underneath their jackets, and a low voice leading them through endless hallways — twisting and turning until Blake can no longer keep track — in the middle of the night.

“Coco, this is ridiculous,” Yang groans. Her hand is tight in Blake’s and there’s an odd tension to the grip, a sheen of sweat that can’t be attributed to the temperature, still low enough that Blake is grateful for the thick wool of the long, black coat she’d been permitted to throw on before leaving her warm apartment. “I know you get off to all this cloak and dagger bullshit, but it’s been _twenty minutes_.”

“These are the terms you agreed to, Yang.” And then, with a little less mystique infused in the words, “Just cool it, alright? We’re almost there.”

“I mean, we _did_ the all white clothes thing, which, _by the way_ , only psychopaths own in their everyday wardrobe. Blake had to borrow a _blouse_ from _Weiss._ I had to borrow a dress shirt from _Neptune_. These are the type of people who go to Memorial Day parties on yachts and talk about the state of their IRAs! I washed this shirt four times and it still smells like _money_. I’m ninety-five percent positive Neptune blends up hundred dollar bills and makes a cologne out of it.”

This gets a short laugh, though no reprieve from the lack of vision. “I didn’t _make_ these rules. And if I’m going to break a bunch to bring you here, then we’re sure as hell sticking to the rest of them.”

“Yeah,” Yang drawls, sarcasm dripping. “Otherwise the ghost of the old white dude who founded your whole secret society will haunt us for the rest of our lives, right?”

“You idiot.” The stop is sudden, as is the light, bright enough to pass through the thick fabric of Blake’s blindfold, even before it’s removed by hands that aren’t particularly gentle. “As if I’d join any society started by a _man_.”

Without the cloth covering her eyes, the brightness is blinding, and it takes Blake several dazed moments, blinking rapidly without any attempt to move, before her surroundings come into focus. It takes another long while, however, before Blake can begin to understand them.

“Hallelujah, Great Lesbian Cult,” Yang proclaims, throwing her arms upwards. “When am _I_ going to get an invite, by the way?” She waves a hand down her body; Neptune’s white dress shirt — buttoned up only half the way, sleeves rolled up despite the cold — combined with the white, ripped jeans and white Vans makes her look like the poster child for a Lesbian Cult, so there isn’t more that needs to be said. “Like, _hello_?”

“When you can learn to keep a secret,” Coco drawls, winking at Blake, who’s still so preoccupied, she nearly misses it.

“Hey! You’re the one who told me about this place even though I’m not part of your fancy club.” Yang protests, and — in a move of extreme maturity — sticks out her tongue.

“Yeah, and this makes us even.” Coco reaches out and swats the top of Yang’s head, pushing down the cowlick that seems to disobey the very laws of physics. “You little shit.”

“Love you too, Coco. Say hi to Velvet.”

Coco turns on her heels, pivoting on the thin top lift without a trace of a wobble. “You know I will. Clean up after you’re done; I’ll be back in a few hours. And —” She waves over her shoulder in a two-fingered salute before she’s shrouded by the darkness of the hallway. “Have fun, kids.”

She leaves them in a place that is most certainly a ballroom.

By now, Blake has determined this, at least.

She couldn’t begin to guess where on campus they might be; the ballroom is old, worn, clearly out of use. The wooden floor hasn’t been polished in decades, parts of it ripped up and leaving gaping holes in the ground; plaster has chipped away from the columns, once richly decorated with motifs Blake can no longer make out; and — in a far corner — a ruined piano has collapsed under its own weight, tipping onto its side. But in the midst of such disuse and disrepair, something new has formed, Romans building on the ruins of their predecessors. Mural has been painted atop mural, with only the most worn walls left untouched (and only with protest). On the ceiling, spread out of the entirety of it, is a version of The Creation of Adam — painted in classic, broad strokes with gorgeous detail — with God handing Adam a can of PBR, each drop of condensation lovingly rendered. At the center of the dance floor, someone has painted an optical illusion, with planks of wood falling into an abyss, where grotesque creatures crawling along the walls, threatening to pull surface-dwellers into the depths. To the side — stretching it’s full fourteen feet in height — stands a replica of the Statue of David, made entirely out of different pasta shapes.

It’s a museum without topic, hidden away in the most unlikely of places, and Blake continues to stare in disbelief long after Coco has left, after Yang has pulled a picnic basket out from behind a veil of multicolored glass, hanging from the ceiling in long, near-invisible strands of wire.

“What —?”

Yang laughs, just a little, and takes Blake’s hand, leading her towards the center of the room, where the optical illusion loses its power without the forced perspective. She spreads out a blanket — a worn madras of purple, yellow, and pink — right atop the gaping fissure, releasing Blake from her grip to straighten it just so. And then she sits, looking up at Blake with a smile that speaks to the pleasure she’s drawing from the surprise, from the unexpectedness of it all.

“It’s a _secret society_ secret,” she explains in a faux whisper. “I don’t know all the details, but Coco says each member has to contribute something here by the end of their senior year. I guess they’ve been doing it since the college was founded, which was like, a million years ago, so it’s added up. Apparently, there are a lot of mythology nerds like you, because there’s a bunch of that stuff in here.” She runs her fingers up Blake’s calf, squeezing gently, and Blake lowers herself onto the blanket, still feeling fairly overwhelmed. “I’ve got a full tour planned later, don’t worry. It’s a lot to take in at first glance.”

“How — ” Blake shakes her head and laughs a little, mostly to herself, though Yang smiles as a result. “What did you do for Coco to make her let us in here?”

“It was her girlfriend’s birthday a couple weeks ago.” Yang scoots a little closer, until her thigh fits against Blake’s, warm and solid. “Coco is all about — well, you can probably tell just from looking at her — she’s all about fancy dinner in fancy places; five star chefs and all that.” Tugging the picnic basket closer, she pulls out paper plates, napkins, wine glasses; Blake sets them out as Yang brings out the food: a bottle of rich gold liquid without a label, an assortment of fruits, a few hand-wrapped packages of dry meat, a jar of purple jam, and a rustic loaf of bread that looks like it could be featured on the cover of Southern Living. “But Velvet has this thing about family meals. Like, home cooked and baked with love and all that. So for her birthday, Coco wanted to give her that. But she’s as hopeless as Weiss in the kitchen. So I helped out. I’m not a bad cook, unless I get distracted.”

Her sheepish grin suggests this happens more often than not.

“I can see that.” She looks up at Yang, is surprised to find that a light pink spreads further on her cheeks the longer Blake stares. “You did all this too?”

“Well, with a lot of help. Velvet’s specialty is bread, so she _basically_ made this loaf. And the mead is actually Neon’s; I know she’s really — uh — _out there_ , but this stuff is _incredible_ , I swear. And — ” She runs a hand through her hair, eyes shifting to the left. “Yeah, I made the jam; that and the fruit is from a community garden I have a plot in. It’s kind of a long story. But my mom — Raven — she’s kind of... _complicated_? She left when I was a kid, but we’ve been trying to like, connect again and so we share this garden, since we both sort of have a knack for growing things. She comes by when I’m not there and adds new stuff or helps water or whatever. It’s… nice, I guess. I mean, it’s something.”

Yang rushes through the story, words spilling over each other.

And though Blake’s spent most of her spare time with Yang for a few months now (in a way that’s remained carefully undefined), this feels like a significant moment: the new truths and the careful planning. Yang’s always seemed like an open book, but in Blake’s experience, people like that hid parts of themselves all the more easily (far more naturally).

But now — looking vaguely uncomfortable and busying herself with the food — Yang shows Blake a page she doesn’t often open for others, lets Blake trace her fingers along the words and read full paragraphs of things she’s only once alluded to before now. There are things Blake could show her in return, probably, but the thought feels cheap, and so she rests her hand on Yang’s thigh instead, strokes her fingers along the frayed holes artfully torn there.

“The meat I bought, though,” Yang adds, clearing her throat once. “I’m not _that_ good.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” She tries for teasing, but doesn’t manage it; there’s sincerity dripping from her words, affection surely shining in her eyes. Yang looks up again and holds her gaze, takes a breath so deep it lifts her shoulders. “Homemade jam? Favors from friends with eclectic skills? Secret ballrooms with modern depictions pulled from classical antiquity?” She grabs the bottle of mystery alcohol and uncorks it; the scent of honey and flowers wafts between them.

( _Of course_ , Blake thinks. _Of course_.)

“From what I’ve seen,” Blake continues, and her voice softens as Yang’s eyes continue to hold hers. “You have a gift for the unexpected.”

There’s more Blake means to say (that Yang has a gift for kindness, beauty, miracles, and — more than anything else — for twisting the focus on Blake’s lens of the world _just_ so, exactly the perfect amount to sharpen everything around her), but Yang reads the unspoken words easily, presses her palm against Blake’s cheek until the warmth of it traverses her spine.

—

_They meet above ground and Kore shows her the world._

_This is not an exaggeration and not a metaphor; Kore shows her the world, one location at a time, pulling her through the earth and the skies, on borrowed flaming chariots or winged sandals or horses made of the waves of the sea._

_(Kore, it seems, is owed a favor by nearly every god on Mount Olympus, if their predilection for loaning her precious items is any indication; it’d be unbelievable if Hades hadn’t felt the effect the goddess could have on anyone in her near vicinity.)_

_Hades has traveled, attending funeral rites when it was required of her, but this is something new, something outside of duty or godhood. This is something purely for_ fun _. There could be nothing further from typical for the god of the Underground, and it shows now, standing with Kore outside of the town of Thisbe, under the shadow of Mount Helicon._

_“Do you wish to be recognized as your fearsome self, Hades, even when you aren’t shepherding souls?”_

_The teasing tone is one that’s familiar to her now, cataloged with all the other ways Kore’s voice might tilt or rise or shift with her moods, all bright and vivid and distinct. The Underworld is a land of monotony, and Kore is anything but, in this and every other way; Hades calls it ‘refreshing’ when speaking aloud and Kore always laughs. (Privately, she considers it something more akin to radiant, miraculous, breathtaking, but these words she still keeps to herself, even as Kore shows none of the same restraint.)_

_“I am what I am,” Hades returns simply, though she betrays herself with the curl at the corner of her lips when Kore steps closer, hands running down Hades’ dour, black robes that so contrast her own._

_“You are a goddess.” This is another tone that Hades is coming to recognize (coming to crave); one that’s soft and reverent in a way that mortals could never conceive. “You can be anything you desire. But most importantly, you can be yourself.”_

_The breath she lets out carries her amusement, but her bewilderment as well. “I believe I just said that. Did I not?”_

_“No.” Kore steps closer still, and sweet honeysuckle fills the air. Hades wants only to drink deep. “You are beyond your role. Beyond what you allow the mortals to see when you are participating in rites. Why not walk the Earth in a form that will allow you to enjoy the world as a spectator rather than the one you believe you are meant to wear?”_

_She makes it sound simple, and perhaps it is._

_“We all have roles to play.”_

_Kore hears the hesitancy and her eyes light up, fingers pressing with care to Hades’ cheek._

_“Not today.”_

_When Hades looks again, her dark robe is gone, replaced by a royal purple, silken folds, and a lighter drape. Hair falls down her back, undone and unrestrained, and a sea breeze picks up the dark strands and throws them across her face, bare of any veil or mask. She is lighter without the symbols she has learned to carry at some point before the beginning of time._

_“There you are,” Kore murmurs, and her fingers ghost over Hades’ mouth, dip into the narrow groove just above her lips._

_“Here I am?” Hades asks, but only idly; she’s uncertain of the meaning, but not particularly concerned with it when she is so preoccupied with wanting more._

_“No matter how you appear to others.” Kore’s mouth is close enough that Hades feels it curve. “This is how I see you. Always.”_

_Hades understands. Agrees. She says so with her kiss, with her hands tangled in Kore’s long, blonde hair, with the flesh of her forearms against the sun-kissed skin on Kore’s freckled shoulders._

_This, she all but says, is how I will know you always._

_But she’s the only one._

_As they walk through the town, skirting around busy mortals rushing through their short lives, they draw stares, but only the sort that beautiful women find commonplace. There is none of the adoration or veneration, but none of the fear as well, none of the panicked horror. Kore presses to her side and murmurs soft greetings for them both, and Hades listens; she feels herself warm, not from the unobstructed rays of the sun — giving color to her skin — but from the ease and kindness with which Kore speaks to the mortals._

_The gods typically treated mortals in ways ranging from disinterest to abuse, and Hades, keeper of their souls and secrets, had heard every complaint and mournful cry, until the weight of it surpassed that which Atlas labored under, until it buried her Underground, where she did her best to soothe, as much as the very laws that kept the universe in place around them allowed._

_It had not occurred to her that the souls of mortals might be touched before leaving their bodies, in the simple way she witnesses now._

_Because Kore does not simply greet; she lightens._

_A brush of her hand against a passing stranger straightens their shoulders, a soft tune hummed under her breath brings green back to the leaves of a small farm plot behind a dilapidated home, a cheery smile adds life to the flowers a young man brings to his beloved; in quiet ways, Kore brightens the lives around her, and Hades — though she is immortal and unending — includes herself in this list._

_The feeling intoxicates, so much so that she nearly misses the soft invocation of her name, though it’s as close as she’s ever heard it, reaching her ears on unnatural wind. Kore takes longer to notice, and only does because Hades stops, head tilted, spine straight._

_(‘_ Plouton, magnanimous, whose realms profound are fix’d beneath the firm and solid ground _,’ the breeze whispers, cool against her face_.)

_She is used to anger, grief, demands, pleads, but this does not quite fit any of those categories; it is unassuming, quiet enough that she may not have noticed had she been down Below, as accustomed as she was to blocking out the cries mortals flung Underground, toward the god they found most repugnant. She takes a step forward, pulled by the unique call, and only looks back at Kore afterwards, an apology on her lips, which Kore shakes off before it can be released._

_“Go where you’re needed. I’ll follow.”_

_(‘_ In the Tartarian plains remote from fight and wrapt forever in the depths of night _.’)_

_And Kore does, silent as she moves behind Hades, one step away as they traverse through winding alleys and paths, following the murmur into the lower tiers of the city. The streets are muddy here, but the dirt touches neither woman’s ankles, does not spatter onto their clothing. Maybe mortals notice then (certainly, they cease their easy greetings), but Hades hardly realizes, not until she is standing at the edge of town, where — it’s clear to her — dozens have been buried._

_There are no place-markers. No stones. No individual graves._

_Simply a field where bodies have been carelessly tossed, the rites abandoned._

_Hades’ anger, always so rare in finding purchase, boils somewhere deep in her chest. The mortals buried here — poor and alone and undervalued — would be turned away by Charon, kept on the far shores with the gods most likely to torment (gods of spite, grief, disease, anxiety, fear, agony) for all eternity, without reprieve._

_The injustice burns; sulfur fills her lungs and hazes the air, the ground grows cold under her feet, mud hardening and cracking. Were she Zeus, she would raze the town with bolts of lightning; were she Hera, every mortal in the vicinity would bleed; were she Athena, the perpetrators would be cursed with a joyless life. But she is none of these figures, and so she cools even before Kore’s hand presses to her back, calming but not demeaning._

_Hades’ anger has always been focused inwards, and so she swallows it now with ease._

_The air clears._

_The disturbance has not affected the woman whose prayer had tugged Hades across the city, though the few other mortals previously present have apparently scattered. She feels some regret at having caused their fear as she steps across the barren field, but only absently, the woman’s words now fully audible to even human ears._

_“Plouton, thy sacred ear incline, and, please, accept thy mystic's hymn divine,” she recites, only to stop, breaths coming short and hard, sobs wracking her form, kneeling in the dirt, hands pressed to a mound of Earth that covers a small body, lying so close to the surface with still others underneath._

_“The ground wasn’t disturbed too long ago,” Kore murmurs, still close, still kind. “It was done quickly. Without much care.”_

_The woman does not notice, though they are steps behind. This is by design, though Hades hadn’t realized until that moment that she and Kore had cloaked themselves as they strode forward. Or, more likely, that she had cloaked herself and Kore had followed, as she’d promised she would._

_“Her daughter. There was no furniture to rearrange, no time for days of prayer and viewing, no family to assemble. The body was not anointed, no wreath laid on her head, no coin placed under her tongue.” Hades’ sigh drops the temperature around them, her breath visible in the air._

_“Lord Hades, mercy is not a trait you are said to show,” the woman continues, face pressed to the Earth, dirt caked under her fingernails. “But hear me. Hear me. The failure is mine. I begged for supplies, stole them when they were not given, but they took her before I could prepare the rites.”_

_Watching her, Hades understands why mortals cry, as this one does now._

_Sometimes, it is the only action one has left._

_“Mercy, Lord of the Unseen.” Sobs break up every other word. Shake her slight frame. “The Rich One. Mercy. My soul for hers. Carry her across the river and I will stay on the shores. I will bear anything. The failure is mine. Mercy.”_

_Mercy is not Hades’ to give. It’s not meant to be hers to give._

_But perhaps it’s Kore’s._

_Grasses grow first, spreading across the whole of the field, bright and vibrant, the greens of plants rooted in the most fertile Earth. The flowers follow, natural garlands of celery circling the crown of the buried girl and then sprouting, filling the air with their thin stalks and strong, bitter smell. She adds color too, reds and purples and golds, non-traditional but rich, beautiful, a show of prosperity the woman could never hope to naturally provide. And then Kore steps forward and offers herself; a strand of her hair, tugged from her head, dropped onto the Earthen mound with soft words of condolence._

_It’s not everything the lost soul might need, but Hades can do the rest._

_Precious metals rise from the depths of the soil, gold and silver and platinum, pulled up and out in flecks, droplets, converging and forming a large coin, which she brings to the surface at the feet of the woman — now standing, now shocked, now frozen — and drops again, into the palm of the girl, pressed to her cold skin._

_“Fare well, young one,” Hades whispers, and hears the woman whisper the same words, hears Kore join in. “Even in the house of Hades, you will no longer be abandoned at the entrance. Know that immortality is granted by memory. Know that you will not be forgotten by those who hold your memory dear. And know that I will be one of those few, carrying you with me always.”_

_“And so you will live on,” Kore finishes, her whisper reaching only Hades’ ear. “As long as we do.”_

_Hades reaches back, finds Kore’s hand already there, solid and warm. Together, they watch the woman weep — praise and adoration now pouring from her lips amidst the tears — finishing the rites as only mortals had the power to do._

—

She meets a boy in her Ancient Greek Lit class, finds his translation of the first line of the _Odyssey_ to be interesting. The word _polytropos,_ he argues, should be taken as an _active_ description; Odysseus is not controlled but _in_ control of his fate. ‘ _Sing to me, Muse, of a compelling man; sing through me the story of a man who could shape the world around him’_ , the boy writes, and Blake gets caught on the intensity in his expression as he reads it, is taken by his confidence and passion (forgets to argue against the lengthiness and the clear liberties he takes).

He greets her after class, suggests they study together sometime, and that’s what Yang finds them doing a couple days later, tucked away in a corner of the library, pouring over words translated a thousand times, Adam finding a way to disagree with every previous version of them. Yang slides into the conversation and a seat next to Blake without needing to be invited, her warm smile at ease even when Adam switches to Greek and speaks fast and condescending.

“Well I don’t know anything about any of that,” Yang says easily. “But Blake told me that myths were supposed to be enjoyed by everyone, right? That they were passed on from generation to generation, like bedtime stories or the sort of thing people would share around a campfire. Seems like getting all wordy and pretentious doesn’t really fit that idea, right?” She smiles, and Blake’s gaze shifts towards it, away from the clear ire in Adam’s eyes. “I’d go with Blake’s version.”

In the hour they’d been at the table, Blake hadn’t offered her own translation (hadn’t been asked), but it’s scribbled there, within the margins of the pages of printed out Greek, and Yang’s fingers brush against the pen strokes as she leans in, their shoulders sliding against each other.

“ _Tell me about a complicated man_ ,” Blake reads, voice soft.

“Yeah.” Yang nods and completely ignores Adam’s glare. Blake finds doing the same to be easy, his magnetism fading away, swept aside by stronger forces. “Sometimes you’ve got to admit that something like that can’t be totally summed up in a word or even in a sentence. There’s something kind of beautiful about that too — I think — admitting the complexity in such a simple way.”

“I… think so too.”

Adam doesn’t last for much longer, quickly tiring of not being the center of attention.

“I don’t like him,” Yang says after he leaves, a simple declaration as she steals a sip from Blake’s water bottle and a peck from her lips.

Blake blinks. Considers. “Yeah. I don’t think I’ll be studying with him again.”

And she doesn’t.

( _It’s not normally that easy_ , she thinks, later on, and isn’t sure what she means by that at all.)

—

_The humans tell tales about them, before their story is finished._

_Time is odd like that when you are immortal and infinite. Beginnings and ends and middles get jumbled in a way that they never do for those who have a life to live in a linear manner_.

_It starts small: maidens whispering words to each other, children making up rhymes, mothers telling stories to put their daughters to sleep. There’s a soft reverence in these traditions, and though she does not catalogue the words they use, she picks up on the meaning. It settles in her chest — the warmth of it — different from the sort that presses at her heart when Kore is near, but significant in a distinct way. The tales change over time, warped by the teller and the listener alike, but the humans could hardly know of the color of Kore’s hair, the tone of her skin, the color of her eyes, and what did these things matter? The meaning persisted, the good intentions enough to sate the both of them._

_And Hades_ is _sated; never before has she experienced the adoration of mortals, only recognizing the sensation when Kore mentions the new rites. There is pleasure in her voice when she speaks of it; sacred ceremonies held in her honor have been held throughout time, but these ones are different. These include the both of them, celebrate a journey they haven’t yet fully undertaken._

_The woman from the grave, now withered and aged, leads the first Mysteries in Eleusis, and hundreds flock to them, actions shrouded in secrecy and ritual. She connects Hades and Kore — spinning a tale of a grave covered in flowers, of precious metals rising from the Earth — in a way no one has, celebrates the triumph of love over death, and people hold these stories sacred, finding a new hope in the land of the dead._

_Something flourishes there, in a way it hasn’t before._

_Hades is happy. And this is entirely new as well._

_(“If only they hadn’t included my mother,” Kore grumbles, though halfheartedly, her fingers weaving flowers into Hades’ hair as they bask in the sun above. “I can’t say I’m looking forward to making that introduction.” And Hades laughs, for once unconcerned.)_

_The stories lengthen, turn into poems, turn into songs, turn into performances, turn into epics. And one day Hermes tells them — amusement in her voice — that they have started to record them, to actually write them down._

_But they carry on, much in the same way._

_What harm could human words have on the lives of the gods?_

**Author's Note:**

> \- I use the name 'Kore' here because this is what Persephone is often called before she's taken down to Hades. I'm using it because I've always enjoyed how her name changes to signify the 'death', but also because 'Kore' means 'maiden' and that's a fun joke to make for RWBY.  
> \- Thanks to fiddleabout/nirav for picking out drinks for Blake and Yang. :)  
> \- The invocation used by the woman at the grave is from The Orphic Hymn to Plouton, which wouldn't quite work if we were working in a linear fashion... but we're not so it's fine. ('Plouton' was another - nicer - name for Hades, meaning 'giver of wealth')  
> \- Blake's translation of the opening line of the Odyssey is from Emily Wilson, who is an actual genius. (The first time I heard this line, I gasped, I swear.) If you have any interest in reading Homer, do yourself a favor and pick up Emily Wilson's version of the Odyssey. I could write a love letter to this translation.  
> \- One thing I just want to mention is that I think that telling the Hades/Persephone myth without the context of the original text is something that can be really unfortunate. I've never much cared for simply saying there's absolutely nothing in the text that says Hades took Persephone down to the Underworld against her will. I do believe that myths and their meanings evolve, but the history of that meaning is still important. I haven't addressed this in this fic yet, but will in time, I promise!


End file.
